Great big brand-new John Deere, casting a shadow that dwarfs some apartments I've rented and sporting a price tag that would get you a couple Roseholme Cottages with money left over for a kickin' hot tub in the back yard. (Small child not included.)

This picture is from last year's fair. Unfortunately, our favorite tractor wasn't there this year. Perhaps Flash Gordon was using it to harvest the spice crop on planet Mongo.

The Minneapolis Moline comfort tractor is so rare every fair only gets it for one year So it'll take 50 years for it to come back to Indianapolis again.

Once in a while our fair will have a short collection of "orchard" style tractors, swoopy streamlined things made to drive through fruit tree orchards without snagginig the branches on the sharp corners of the tractor.

The Cub shares that asymmetry with the Farmall A/Super A, a representative of which is partially visible behind the cub's right rear tire. IH called it "Culti-Vision", as offsetting the powertrain gave the operator a much better view of what was going on beneath the tractor.

If you buy an old International, you will find a line card in the glove box. Do not lose it. It tells the dealer what assemblies were used to make that particular item.

For example, if they needed to make a bunch of trucks, they grabbed whatever axles happened to be available at that particular moment, used them, and put them on the line card ... that axle could have been meant for a road grader ... if it could be made to fit and work, it would go in.

For some reason, that last one radiates a vibe of "I started life as a pickup truck." There's no bed and the wheels are in entirely the wrong places, but it's uncanny how much that cab and hood look like a really old pickup truck. Or maybe a milk truck.